> In article <[email protected]>, Dr.
> Desertphile <[email protected]> writes
> >Are insects REALLY smarter than humans, or is Wickramasinghe suffering
> >from Scientology or other mental illness?
>
> I'd withhold judgement until I'd seen the context. (There being at least
> a third possibility - that in context the phrase does not mean the same
> as in isolation.)

I'm not sure of the context of this thread but here is some context on the
intelligent insect thing.

*******
The situation points clearly to one of two possibilities. Either we are
dealing with an overt plan invented by an intelligence considerably higher
than our own, an intelligence which has foreseen all our chemicals and
flamethrowers, or the insects have already experienced selection Pressure
against intelligences of at least our level in many other environments
elsewhere in the universe.

There is a curious variant of the first possibility. Could the insects
themselves be the intelligence much higher than our own? We are so
conditioned to thinking that the intelligence of a species can be
exemplified by an individual member that it is hard to assess a situation in
which each individual might show little intelligence, but in which the
combined aggregate of individuals might show much. Yet it is so in our own
brains, where no individual neuron can be said to display intelligence but
in which the aggregate of neurons constitutes exactly what we understand by
intelligence.

The static nature of insect societies goes against this thinking. If an
enormous intelligence inhabits the beehives of the world, we might expect
more evidence of its presence. But this may again be to endow an opponent
with our own restless characteristics. Perhaps concealment is an essential
tactic. Perhaps the intelligence is static because it understands the dictum
of sagacious lawyers: 'When your case is going well, say nothing'.

The insect case is indeed going well. Along with the chemicals and the
flamethrowers, there are nuclear bombs also. Insects are highly resistant to
X-rays and other forms of ionizing radiation. Insects can frequent dumps of
radioactive waste without harm. Nor are the plants on which insects feed
harmed at all by radioactivity. This sets the scene for the future. From
nuclear war only one creature will profit hugely, the insect. Insects may
be close to inheriting the Earth without a struggle. It may well seem that
man arrived in a brief moment, and then disappeared even more swiftly than
he came.
*******